Here's exactly why Christie is losing his lead

When Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie was before the Star-Ledger editorial board the other day, I asked him just how he could keep his promise to increase property-tax rebates while also cutting the income tax.

I pointed out to him that it is the income tax that funds those rebates. And that therefore he will not be able to increase rebates at the same time he cuts the source of funding for those rebates.

I also pointed out that his primary opponent, conservative Steve Lonegan, had been honest enough to admit that the state can't afford the rebates.

So didn't Christie feel a little guilty about smearing Lonegan?

As always, he dodged the question.

And as my prior post about that meeting showed, he also dodged the question of whether he would produce real property-tax relief in the only way possible: by giving suburban homeowners a fair return on their income tax dollars in the form of state aid equal to that received by the cities.

He's still dodging. Check out the latest Christie ad in which he promises to say "exactly" what he'll do and then repeats the same vague and contradictory promises he's been making since February. Once again he promises to restore rebates while cutting the source of the rebate money. Exactly how will he do it?

He's still not saying.

No wonder Jon Corzine's catching up with him in the polls.

It should be simple for a Republican to take votes away from Corzine by promising to take tax money back from the corrupt cities, where it is being wasted. But Christie won't make even that simple promise.

Instead he's proposing vague spending cuts, and he won't specify exactly what will be cut.

This isn't fooling anyone. Bad as Corzine's been, Christie keeps the focus on himself by running this non-campaign.

I'll grant that Lonegan probably wouldn't be doing much better in the polls at the moment. But when I talk to Lonegan, which I've done quite a bit since he surfaced on the scene back in 2000, he always gives exact numbers, exact programs he'll cut and exact everything.

True, that sort of thing leaves him open to the sort of sleazy attacks Christie mounted on him in the primaries. But that's exactly why the Republican Party made a big mistake by choosing a candidate who doesn't want to campaign over Lonegan.

Meanwhile, here's an example of a candidate saying exactly what he intends to do. It's from an article about Lonegan rolling out his economic plan during the primaries. Note the honesty about rebates. And note how Christie later engaged in the very worst of cheap shots on this subject:

“The rebate system is a poor, ineffective government policy and actually a destructive government policy.”

“The rebate system is poor economic and poor government policy and ineffective and has been nothing but a sham since it first started under Brendan Byrne. We see it come and go, come and go. And Jim McGreevey raised the top-end tax and guaranteed the rebates. And Florio raised the tax, and he guaranteed the rebates. And what’s the first thing on the chopping block? It’s the rebates.

“The rebate program should be gone for good. And if I had my way, I’d like to see it ended forever, and I’ll bet you if I put this on the ballot, the voters of New Jersey would make a constitutional amendment to kill it forever.

“The only rebate that should ever occur from a state government is when that government operates at a surplus, a true surplus, and refunds the surplus to its taxpayers, and that should be done through tax cuts, like reducing to a flat rate income tax rate as I talked about.

“I do not intend on supporting the concept of a rebate, whether it’s politically correct or a vote-buying grab or not. This state can no longer continue to function under this kind of income redistribution program. So rebates are gone. And that accounts for a whole big chunk of getting this budget down to where it should be. But in return for phony rebates and income redistribution plans, we’re going to create a dynamic and growing economy.”

A note on the Corzine appearance yesterday: The Governor appeared before our editorial board yesterday and I asked him the same question I had asked Chris Christie about what he will do about property taxes in the worst-affected towns, such as West Orange and Montclair.

I'll be getting the video of that soon and will be posting it. In the meantime, I can confidently say this to homeowners: Don't hold your breath waiting for him to cut your taxes either.